Not Waving but DrowningBy Stevie SmithNobody heard him, the dead man,   But still he lay moaning:I was much further out than you thought   And not waving but drowning.Poor chap, he always loved larkingAnd now he’s deadIt must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,   They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   (Still the dead one lay moaning)   I was much too far out all my life   And not waving but drowning.Perhaps you are walking around this Christmas with a happy mask - but you are actually much to far out all your life, and not waving but drowning. Then I have a piece of poetry for you.

Readings and Thoughts on Poetry, Faith & The Imagination. 

All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil’s short-pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when a new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end and square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music.
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
Of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.

The Forge - Seamus Heaney